Core study two- Piliavin (soical area)

Question 1

Background

Answer 1

Following the Kitty Genovese case, social psychologists began to investigate why people fail to help someone in need.
Darley and Latané set up a lab experiment where participants heard someone apparently having an epileptic seizure. They believed that either they alone heard the victim or that there were 1 or 4 others present.
Results showed that when they believed they were alone 85% reported the seizure compared to 62% when they thought there was another person present and only 31% when they believed that 4 others were present.

Question 2

Aims

Answer 2

his study was designed to investigate how a group of people would react if they saw a person who collapsed on a train.

Would an ill person get more help than a drunk person? (the type of victim)

Would people help others of the same race before helping those of different races?

If a model person started helping the
victim, would that encourage others to also help?

Would the number of bystanders who saw the victim influence how much help was given?

Question 3

Bystander apathy

Answer 3

where people fail to act and help someone in need when others are present.

Question 4

Diffusion of responsibility

Answer 4

where there is a victim and lots of bystanders are present; the responsibility for helping is shared between all the bystanders so each individual does not feel enough responsibility to help.

Question 5

Pluralistic ignorance

Answer 5

when the majority of group members reject a norm but incorrectly believe that others accept it- thinking that others are not helping because it is the normal thing to do.

Question 6

Altruism

Answer 6

Doing a good deed without getting any reward

Question 7

Research method

Answer 7

Field experiment- ( natural environment were behavior happens)

Question 8

IV

Answer 8

Black vs White (race)
Drunk vs ill
always male

Question 9

Model conditions

Answer 9

Always male
Early ( act 70 seconds after collapse) or late ( act 150 seconds after collapse)
critical or adjacent area

Question 10

DV

Answer 10

• Time taken for 1st passenger to help
• Total number of passengers who helped
• Gender, race and location of help
• Time for 1st help after model
• Others including gender, race and location of passengers within the critical area, spontaneous comments and movement of passengers out of the critical area

Question 11

Sample

Answer 11

• Participants were passengers who were on board the 8th Avenue subway express train in New York.
• They did not know they were taking part in a study, gave no consent and were not debriefed.
• Approximately 4,450 participants took part in the study over three months.
  55 percent of them were white and 45 per cent were black.
• The study took place daily on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. over three months.
• The experiment always took place between the same two stops on the train as there was a 7.5 minute period with no interruptions.

Question 12

How was the sample obtained

Answer 12

Opportunity as the people were available at the time

Question 13

The Procedure

Answer 13

Using teams of university students, a situation was created on the train to see how passengers would react to it.
Seventy seconds into the journey, one of the university students would stagger forwards and collapse on the train.
The student would always collapse in the same spot – designated the ‘critical area’. The other side of the carriage was called the ‘adjacent area’.
Participants’ reactions were then observed covertly by two observers.
On some days the victim would appear to be ILL and hold a walking cane.
On other days the victim would appear DRUNK and smell of alcohol.
The RACE of the victim would vary. Sometimes he was white, and other times black.
In some groups, a MODEL (one of the students, who was acting) would help the VICTIM.
The number of passengers on the train would also vary.

Question 14

Quantitative findings

Answer 14

ill victims received help 95% of the time ( 62/65) - spontaneous
Drunk victims received help 50% of the time (19/38)
Race did not really have a large effect on who helped whom
90% of helpers were men
10% of helper were women
models were rarely needed ; the public usually helped quickly on their own
The number of bystanders made no difference to how many people helped
When drunk mainly victims of own race came to help.

Question 15

Qualitative findings

Answer 15

Many women made comments such as ‘I’m not strong enough’
For more comments were obtained form passengers during drunk trials then during cane trials .

Question 16

Conclusions

Answer 16

An individual who appears to be ill is more likely to receive help than one who appears to be drunk
Men are more likely to help then women
There is some tendency for some for same race helping especially is a victim appears to be drunk
Help comes quickest with more witness ( in other words diffusion of responsibility was not observed)
The longer the emergency continue without help being offered the less impact the model has.

Question 17

Explanation of findings

Answer 17

Passengers were trapped on the train and could not really leave the situation. On the street the results may have been different.

It was less effort for passengers to help. If they were sitting on the train anyway and were waiting for the next stop they may as well help.

Unlike the situation with Kitty Genovese, it was clear what the problem was for the bystanders who were sitting next to the victim.

It states that when bystanders are faced with a situation, a state of arousal is created (it could be fear, disgust, guilt, etc.).

This arousal makes us feel uncomfortable.
We want to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling of arousal and we can do this in different ways.

Either we can help the person, or we can leave the situation.

What we do depends on the costs and rewards of choosing whether to help or not.

Question 18

Ecological validity

Answer 18

Low- The study took place during the day time (weekdays 11am - 3pm), so participants may not expect to see people drunk on the train at that time.

High- The situation was staged on a normal subway journey so participants were in a natural environment. It is a fairly realistic situation for someone to collapse in front of you and need help (albeit this is a more extreme helping scenario).

Question 19

Population validity

Answer 19

Low-Only studied passengers on one subway journey in New York city so the findings might not reflect helping of other US cities or that in other cultures.

High-The study was carried out in New York, which is a very diverse city. The sample included people from different ethnic backgrounds and genders

Question 20

Construct validity

Answer 20

Low- The participants may not have been paying attention to the victim initially when he collapsed so time taken to help might have been affected. They also could not control the number of passengers on the train carriage or where they were located which might have influenced their response. Passengers could have witnessed the situation more than once.

High- The victims always fell in the same place, so there is less chance of the environment changing the participants’ helping behaviour. Passengers didn’t know they were taking part in a psychological experiment (and that the ‘victim’ wasn’t collapsing for real)

Question 21

Internal reliability

Answer 21

Low (was not strandarised)- A passenger may already have been standing in the place that the ‘victim’ was supposed to collapse, meaning he couldn’t always collapse in the same place. The floors of carriages may not have been equally clean (or equally dirty) across all 103 trials

Low (difficult to repeat)- Similar issues of ethical guidelines being broken, in particular with regards to deceiving participants (making them believe that someone was seriously unwell and collapsed in front of them).

High (standardized parts of the producre)- There were lots of things kept consistent such as the instructions from the experimenter, his appearance, the prods used, and the standardised way in which the ‘learner’ behaved.

Question 22

External reliability

Answer 22

4450 is a very large sample so it should represent consistent effects of helping. It took part across 103 trials in total so again this should make the findings reliable. However, there were fewer drunk trials and not many trials with the black victim so the results for these conditions may not be so reliable.

Question 23

ethnocentric

Answer 23

Ethnocentric- The level of help offered may only reflect the behaviour of Americans, and particularly New Yorkers so the same level of help might not be offered if the study was done in a different culture (e.g. one that is more collectivist).

not ethnocentric- The sample included people from different ethnic backgrounds (45% black; 55% white).The study was carried out in New York, which is a diverse ‘world city’ with a heterogeneous population.

Question 24

Ethics kept

Answer 24

Confidentiality was upheld we don’t know the names of any of the passengers on the NY subway.

Question 25

Ethics broken

Answer 25

Unethical: lack of informed consent, none of the 4450 passengers knew their data about helping was being collected; no debriefing after the study; deception, they really thought someone had collapsed and required help; protection from harm, some passenger might have felt guilty for not helping; no right to withdraw.

Question 26

Piliavin is part of the Social Area because

Answer 26

They were investigating the impact that other people have on our behaviour and, in particular,whether the likelihood of someone helping out in an emergency situation increased or decreased by the visible presence of others witnesses to the event.

Question 27

Strengths of the Social Area

Answer 27

1. It can help improve our understanding of human behaviour, in particular, to which extent is affected by other people.
2. Research is very useful as it can have applications in a range of different settings
3. Research is able to explain real-world event

Question 28

Limitations of the Social Area

Answer 28

Findings from research within the Social Area might not be true all the time (as social situations can change over time)

Findings may not be true for all places (as social situations can change from one culture to another)